Archived News
  2008
     August
Ware Wins Handicap
25.08.08
Conditions were near perfect for Saturday’s Senior 55.5km handicap race to Telecom Tower and return and the Junior 25km handicap from Telecom Tower.  Both finished just before the OneSteel lights.
The showers had cleared and there was only a slight breeze with some riders posting their best average for the season.
Aaron Shore was the first rider off and rode well on his own to hold off Graeme Fargher, Gary Anderson and Peter
Werner who were steadily closing the 16 minute start gap.
G Anderson dropped slightly off the back of Werner and Fargher on the hill up to Telecom Tower and was still 20 seconds behind as they reached the turn around while Shore was three minutes ahead of Werner and Fargher.
Adrian Wilson, Tim Fulton, Grant Vickery, Ryan Ware, Steve Brown and Darren Anderson were off 26 minutes while Ron Versteegh, Wil Symons and Ben Young started a minute later.
The scratch riders looked to be reeling in chopping block just after the old dairy bend but the six riders had increased their
lead by 30 seconds by the turn around.
Ware attacked going up the hill to the tower and pulled away from his group with Fulton chasing him down to be just 10 seconds behind at the turn.  The hill climb saw G Anderson and Vickery both drop off the back of their respective group and not able to get back on after the turn around.
Young accidentally pulled his foot off his pedal and into his chain on the return leaving Versteegh and Symons the impossible task of trying to reel in the six riders in the group
in front of them.
D Anderson, Brown and Wilson were able to reel in Ware and Fulton to be back together on the Point Lowly road.
Fargher and Werner caught Shore before the flood bend where Shore started to loose contact with them and the five chopping block riders closing in fast to be 30 seconds behind them.
Werner and Fargher tried to lift the pace and managed to hold them off until just before they turned onto the Port Augusta road.
The pace lifted again as they got nearer to the finish splitting the group and leaving Brown, Wilson, D Anderson and Ware for the sprint to the line.
Ware narrowly held off Brown, Wilson and D Anderson finished first, and in the fastest time, with Werner, Fargher and Fulton not that far behind.
In the Junior race Charlotte Wakeling, Liza Wakeling and Sam Campbell worked hard to hold off Jessica Shore and Pierce Sutton, off three minutes and Jai Sutton and Dylan Starkey off five and a half minutes.
P Sutton set a good pace trying to reel in the front markers however Shore couldn’t match him and dropped off the back and L Wakeling lost contact with her group.
J Sutton and Starkey slowly closed the gap to the other groups but couldn’t quite manage to reel them all in before the line.
Campbell and C Wakeling weren’t able to match the pace of P Sutton when he joined them so he took the lead and held it to the finish.
Campbell outsprinted C Wakeling to be second while J Sutton, with the fastest time, finished just ahead of Starkey with L Wakeling and Shore not that far behind.